


To Con the Mind

by cissues



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Fantasy High
Genre: Coming Out, M/M, Partying, Pre-Slash, Underage Drinking, set during Crustaceans & Crushes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23419051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cissues/pseuds/cissues
Summary: Kristen says, “kiss the shrimp.”It’s solittleand Riz is solittleand sometimes he feels like a shrimp, too. Sometimes he feels powerless and held against his will and chewed up and spat out and never taken seriously, never considered. His chest heaves a little and he gazes at the shrimp forlornly.“I’m not gonnakissthe shrimp. It’s dead, Kristen, and wekilled it.”---Riz is drunk at the Hollyhill party and has a conversation with Adaine about mysteries.
Relationships: Riz Gukgak/Fabian Aramais Seacaster
Comments: 15
Kudos: 258





	To Con the Mind

**Author's Note:**

> OK OK OK so i absolutely drunk posted an absolute shit garbage version of this yesterday so I rewrote it today and made it make more sense and be less god awful bad. i actually like this one a lot and think it's pretty sweet so take this instead please!!!
> 
> my d20 tumblr is niteyorb.tumblr.com !! i wanna talk about d20 and also if u have any prompts or anything lemme know i love that shit!!!
> 
> title taken from Border Line by King Krule which is a Good song and a good riz song that i like

“The shrimp is so little... and sometimes they get caught in the nets and stuff...”

Riz is slumped over on the floor, fingers pressing into his eyes where he can feel tears gathering. Kristen is squatting beside him, a small handful of shrimp and a determined look screwing up the features of her face. She’s holding a shrimp out and she sounds more serious than she’s been in a while when she says, “kiss the shrimp.”

It’s so _little_ and Riz is so _little_ and sometimes he feels like a shrimp, too. Sometimes he feels powerless and held against his will and chewed up and spat out and never taken seriously, never considered. His chest heaves a little and he gazes at the shrimp forlornly.

“I’m not gonna _kiss_ the shrimp. It’s dead, Kristen, and we _killed it_.”

Kristen stares at him for a few more intense moments, swaying slightly, before she shrugs and pops the shrimp into her mouth, standing up. Riz feels an agonized gasp bubble up in his chest but Kristen is already walking away and she couldn’t have possibly understood that, in a way, she had just eaten _him_. Purely metaphorically, but Riz feels the teeth anyway.

Dropping his head in his hands, Riz stays sitting on the hardwood floor. He can hear the revelry and partying happening around him but all he can think about is how absolutely fucking miserable he is. Does alcohol always do this? Is this what it feels like to be drunk? The snuff powder made him feel infinite, expanded far beyond his own body and his own perception. The Dwarven mead dulls his senses and forces him back down and into his own body and he feels _trapped_.

When Riz finally looks up, he immediately catches sight of Fabian, Elven sheet draped artfully over his shoulders. He always sees Fabian first, sometimes he all he sees is Fabian and that isn’t something that he likes thinking about but his head is clouded and his heart is already sort of hurting and, really, what’s one more tear.

Fabian is smiling wide and free and loose like he has been lately. Riz isn’t sure what to do with this new Fabian. He could handle the teasing barbs and the gentle ribbing and the talk of Aelwyn Abernant and he was able to distance himself accordingly. He could look at Fabian and be his friend and he knew, intrinsically, that nothing more would or could ever happen. Fabian is a hero, an adventurer, a pirate’s son. He always got the loot and he always got the girl and Riz was happy being the sidekick. It felt natural, the adoring right-hand-man, always cast over by the shadow of the real champion. Now, though… now Fabian’s eyes have shifted from that brutal determination into a kind and caring gentleness that Riz has no idea what to do with. At the pile-ons when, instead of running the elemental through with his sword, Fabian dipped and kissed it, Riz realized that he wasn’t a sidekick anymore. This Fabian, this soft and delicate Fabian who dances with a glittering sheet all night and doesn’t tire and feels good and in love with his friends and himself and the world around him… he doesn’t need Riz like before. Riz doesn’t fit like he did.

Absently, Riz notices that his tears have stopped and that his face is dry but he still feels miserable. Lamenting about Fabian seems to have shifted his mood from tearful to full on pathetically melancholy.

Riz watches as Fabian laughs at something Ragh said, gripping the half-orc’s shoulder to keep himself steady as he doubles over and feels his insides twist just a little bit. Riz hears Kristen shout “think fast!” and Fabian’s head snaps up as he twists his body fluidly, catching a shrimp easily in his mouth. He lifts his arms above his head in triumph and seems to look around for a moment before catching Riz’s gaze and silently cheers again, chest moving in closed-mouth giggles. Riz gives him a half-hearted smile and a thumbs up and Fabian _winks_ at him before turning back to the rest of the group. Riz feels his face and his ears heat up instantly and his heart does a funny sort of thumping that he’s only ever felt once. Rushing to Fabian’s side in Leviathan as he hung, unconscious, from clotheslines and ropes with blood dripping down his face and into his grey-blond hair, tinting it a copper that hasn’t quite washed out yet. Holding Fabian’s head in his hands, feeling the sticky blood and not knowing what to do, feeling useless and confused and not even perceiving the healers coming up behind him as he gets out his first aid kit. His heart pounded then, close to the skin and heavy and erratic. That’s what it feels like now as he watches Fabian jump effortlessly onto the countertop in order to chuck shrimp into the mouths of their friends. Maybe Riz should talk to Kristen when she’s sober in the morning, see if she can make sure he doesn’t have any underlying heart conditions.

There’s a gentle thud from just beside him and Riz glances over to see Adaine, face pinched in a concentration as she gazes out at the rest of the party. She doesn’t say anything and for a few moments Riz waits for her to speak but she only watches and sighs deeply.

“Uh, hey, Adaine.” He says, not able to help the small smile that begins to play on his face. Her eyebrows jump high on her head as she whips around to look at him. She looks like she hadn’t even seen him in the first place and she misjudges her turn, nearly toppling over before giggling and righting herself again.

“Riz!” She says with enthusiasm. “I didn’t see you! You’re being so… quiet. And sad.” Her face pinches again with confusion, “why are you so sad, Riz?”

Riz sighs a little, running his fingers though his hair as he glances back out at the rest of the party. At Fabian. “Uh, not really sure. I don’t think I like being drunk.”

Adaine nods wisely, crossing her legs and gripping her ankles as she rocks gently from side to side. “Yes, it’s quite dull. It’s… it’s dulling. Of the senses, I mean.” She cocks her head a little to the side and follows Riz’s gaze. She narrows her eyes and Riz feels a very real fear come over him. He’s not even sure what she might see, or what she might _think_ she sees, but he knows, instinctively, that he does not want her to figure it out. Whatever it is. Not that there’s anything _to_ figure out or anything.

After a moment she hums a little and smiles, looking back at him. He feels the same loud thumping in his chest and immediately turns his face to the floor, chewing anxiously at his lip.

“It’s okay, you know,” she says softly, quietly. He doesn’t look at her.

“It really is. I think we all want… we all want something. Things we can’t have. Or things we won’t let ourselves have.” She hums again and reaches out to place a hand on Riz’s shoulder. He mostly succeeds in not jumping or shying away from the touch.

“You’re very good at mysteries, Riz Gukgak,” she says and when Riz looks at her, blinking owlishly, she has a serious sort of look on her face even though her eyes still seem unfocused from the alcohol and she has to right herself every so often. “Some mysteries are less mysterious then we think they are. Sometimes we dig and dig and dig but the… the answer was always right there at the top.”

Her gaze has shifted from staring intensely at Riz to looking back out at the party, at where their friends are gathered, sitting now on the floor and playing some form of “hot potato” with a whole boiled lobster.

“What’s your mystery, Adaine?” He asks and she shudders a little, dropping her hand to her lap. She doesn’t say anything for a long, long moment before she breathes in deeply and opens her mouth. Nothing comes out for a few beats and then she says,

“We’re teenagers. Everything is a little bit of a mystery right now, and I don’t think that’s going to stop for a very, very long time. I’m comfortable in my mystery. I trust that it will, in due time, solve itself. My question to you, Riz,” she looks at him again and something has snapped into place for her - maybe her Elven constitution has already begun to metabolize the half of a beer that she’d had, but she looks so deadly serious that for a moment Riz is concerned that she’s under some sort of spell, “My question is… when will you stop digging?”

Adaine is a very intense person a lot of the time. This is the reason that she and Riz get along so well. They’re both intense in similar but different ways and they both care a great deal about discovery. If it weren’t for this knowledge, Riz would be scared right now. He sees the glitter of an oracle’s innate understanding behind her eyes, the paling of her irises, and purses his lips. He feels a confession on his tongue and he thinks… if there was ever a time to admit, it would be now.

He breathes in deep, averting his eyes again to the ground and nodding.

“I think… I think I -- Baron was a boy.”

Adaine’s eyebrows raise again, surprised like she had fully not expected him to say that. He frowns and shakes his head. “I mean the creature, the one that pulled me into the mirror… my lie about Baron, he was a boy. I think. I think there was a reason that he was a boy. Or, at least, boy-adjacent. I think that I made him a boy on purpose. Because if I was going to… ugh, if I was going to _date_ anyone, it would probably be a boy.”

Adaine’s face relaxes and she smiles, calm and gentle and sweet and she scoots herself closer to him on the ground. She wraps an arm around his shoulders and rests her head on top of his. “Thank you for telling me. I didn’t mean to make you feel like you had to say that--”

Riz shakes his head and leans into her. “No, I wanted to. I haven’t really had a chance to think about it a whole lot, what with everything. It’s nice to just be… just be a teenager dealing with teenager shit sometimes.”

She nods and he can feel it on his head. He looks out at the group and when he finds Fabian, Fabian is looking back at him. He seems embarrassed at first at being caught looking, but then he smiles and gestures for Riz to join them. Riz smiles back and shakes his head as he feels Adaine’s weight fall more onto him and he can tell she’s falling asleep. Fabian rolls his eyes playfully and flips Riz off.

Maybe Fabian is changing, and maybe Riz is changing, but it doesn’t have to be the death sentence for their friendship that Riz thought it was going to be. Maybe the friendship will change and grow right along with them. Maybe it will build and grow and find layers and nuance that Riz never expected. Maybe he should wait, for a bit, and quit his digging. Maybe this mystery will solve itself.

**Author's Note:**

> again my tumblr is niteyorb.tumblr.com !! don't forget 2 kudos and comment if u liked it thank you love u bye!!!


End file.
